RossiniRossini

The cheerful spirit of elegant salons, brilliant storyteller and gourmet, Gioacchino Rossini. Although he described his spiritual compositions with undisguised bitterness as “sins of old age”, they still live on the concert stage. After his Parisian triumphs, the opera magician decided to call it a day with his beloved opera and planned to enjoy his composer’s retirement. However, he did not escape commissions from his admirers. In 1863 it was an impulse from Count Alexis Pillet-Will who commissioned a mass cycle from Rossini for his wife Louise. Thus the Petite Messe solenelle was born. Soon after the first performance, Rossini set about the instrumentation of the mass with alacrity, lest “it should fall into the hands of Messrs Sax and Berlioz” who (if he died) “would come with their saxophones and other giants of the modern orchestra and kill my poor voices”. The composer did not live to see the performance of this version; the concert will feature the work in its original version.

The quartet of Slovak opera soloists and the staging by Austrian guest Thomas Lang are sure to please many a lover of choral and Italian music.